Dustin Panzino  -   Https://www.artstation.com/inkwell  -  Https://twitter.com/inkwell_illust  - 

The water is blessed, said the priests; it is holy. Any evil it touches, it will burn away.

But what if it is diluted? asked the acolytes.

The priests smiled.

It can’t be, they said.

***

The first of the holy water splashed across the brow of the baby, wailing and shivering in her mother’s arms, and the droplets ran over newborn skin to fall upon the soil.

They drained into the earth, mingling with the dew; and the dew became holy too.

***

The grass that grew on the soil drank some of the water in, drawing it into cells that were instantly blessed, filled with purity. Later, the sheep grazed upon the grass. The blades were sweet and lush, fat with rain, and as the sheep ate, the blessing in the grass flourished within it, coursing through now-sacred blood.

***

The rest of the water sank lower through the soil, washed down with the rains. Groundwater flowed, consecrated, sweeping below the earth beneath the reach of roots or the eyes of humanity.

There was more water there, and the holiness grew.

***

It can’t be? the acolytes asked. How can it not be diluted?

It converts, said the priests. A drop of holy water in a flask from the lake turns the whole flask holy.

What if a drop reaches the lake? asked the acolytes.

Why would that happen? asked the priests.

***

The butcher slew the sheep, taking the meat for cawl. It bubbled in its pot over the fire, the water from the cells of the mutton leaching out into the rest of the stew until all the family groaned at the sweet scent.

It tastes better today, they said, as they ate heartily. We wonder why?

***

The groundwater reached the river, and the whole vein became holy.

***

The butcher’s son was caught by the vampire the following night, wandering home just a little too late, a little too drunk, a little too alone. I wonder if you could help me? the vampire asked, and the butcher’s son followed where he should not have gone.

The vampire sank hungry fangs into unwilling flesh, and the butcher’s son accepted the end.

But it did not come for him.

***

What can have happened? the vampires asked afterwards. What strange power is held by the butcher’s boy? What did he do?

It was a mystery, baffling and wrong. The vampire had been strong and savvy, a hunter of renown. Now, her veins burned, her body aflame from the inside out.

Sickness, maybe? they said uneasily; but there was no sickness that could take a vampire.

***

The river gave drinking water to all the people of the region, in towns and villages and farmsteads alike. The holiness grew, spreading from land to bodies, young and old, rich and poor, believer and unbeliever, coursing through veins and hearts.

And the river flowed on.

***

Something is wrong, the vampires said. 

It was clear now; every vampire in the land was sickening, burning from the inside out as they fed.

No sickness, said the elders, shivering and broken. A corruption. A taint, spreading unchecked like rot. We must leave this land, move elsewhere.

There is something in the water.

***

The river reached the ocean, and the holiness spread from shore to distant shore.

***

We are safe here, the vampires said, collapsing on foreign soil. We cannot touch the ocean; but why should we need to? The humans cannot drink it either. We are safe here.

We are safe.

***

The sun shone over the waves.

Water rose on the warmth, evaporating to the sky. It greeted the clouds, and the holiness blossomed through them.

***

When the rains fell, the vampires screamed; for they knew the end was coming. Every raindrop burned, every splash agony, and they wept and watched in horror as the rains filled the wells, filled the soils, filled the lakes and rivers and valleys and moors, the corruption seizing the new land in its iron grip.

This is the end, they whispered, crumbling to dust. This is the end.

This is the end.

***

The water is blessed, said the priests; it is holy. Any evil it touches, it will burn away.

But what if it is diluted? asked the acolytes.

The priests smiled.

It can’t be, they said.

Photographic highlights of the year

Photographed by Freddie Ardley 

do it.

A bird explaining to a hedgehog crossing so it doesn’t die.

What if the forgotten gods have forgotten themselves? If they have taken on the forms of our beings and wander among us searching for something they just can’t recall? What if when they were forgotten they forgot themselves and fell away from their bodies to become spirits drifting aimlessly? Perhaps they made the rest of the world forget too, they fell into the silent reaches after sound and light have faded and steer others away from them. Perhaps we’ve all been forgotten as they were and now we truly are alone. Or perhaps they guide others to this forgotten place to make them join in their fate, driving them to madness and pain, a place where reason and time are gone and all that once was and is now destroyed lives? Perhaps even the forgotten can forget

thanks keyboard, when I accidentally typed hest instead of best I totally wanted the hest (norwegian word for horse) emoji

🎃GUYS🎃GALS🎃NONBINARY🎃PALS🎃OF🎃EVERY🎃AGE🎃WOULDN'T🎃YOU🎃LIKE🎃TO🎃SEE🎃SOMETHING🎃STRANGE🎃COME🎃WITH🎃US🎃AND🎃YOU🎃WILL🎃SEE🎃THIS🎃OUR🎃TOWN🎃OF🎃HALLOWEEN🎃THIS🎃IS🎃HALLOWEEN🎃THIS🎃IS🎃HALLOWEEN🎃PUMPKINS🎃SCREAM🎃IN🎃THE🎃DEAD🎃OF🎃NIGHT🎃THIS🎃IS🎃HALLOWEEN🎃EVERYBODY🎃MAKE🎃A🎃SCENE🎃TRICK🎃OR🎃TREAT🎃TILL🎃THE🎃NEIGHBORS🎃GONNA🎃DIE🎃OF🎃FRIGHT🎃ITS🎃OUR🎃TOWN🎃EVERYBODY🎃SCREAM🎃IN🎃THIS🎃TOWN🎃OF🎃HALLOWEEN🎃

The Full "I Will Love You." Letter. The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket

Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope.

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock. I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it. I will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear daggerproof tunics, and as a daggerproof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt form the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love you until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

Adventure: Sparks Fly at the Powderkeg Taphouse

“ ALRIGHT YOU MANGEY DOGS, YOU KNOW THE RULES: NO DYING ON THE PREMSIS OR WE CHUCK YOU IN THE ALLEY, NO KNIVES UNLESS YOUR TAB  IS SQUARE, AND NO BREAKING A GLASS YOU HAVEN’T PAID FOR.  AND REMEMBER, SPARE TEETH GO INNA THE TEETH JAR: ROUND’S ON THE HOUSE IF YOU SAD, GIBFACED, BASTARDS MANAGE TO FILL IT UP.”

-Ares McKinley, Barkeep. 

Setup: When listed among the city’s various taverns, drinking halls, and common rooms, the Powderkeg is a sort of afterthought. Easily the most rowdy establishment in the city, it has little in the way to recommend it it save for the cheapness of its drinks or the ease with which one can find a brawling partner ( or three). There are rooms to let, but the loudness of the rabble downstairs lasts until the early hours of the morning and seems to preclude sleep, which the proprietors seem more than happy to encourage as it scares off “ The wrong sort of customer”.   

Adventure Hooks

The Powderkeg makes a natural backdrop for any hardknuckle tournament, be it wrestling, boxing, or just a plain old fashioned fightclub. Characters who want to prove their grit may seek their fortune in the lists, but may discover that the Powderkeg regulars are well acquainted with a wide variety of cheats, ranging from simple underhanded tactics to performance enhancing substances. While many of these under the table alchemics are to be expected in such violence revering venue, some others seem tailor made to the clients interests, or else dangerously unpredictable. A back alley alchemist is at work here, selling drugs to the brawlers and using the clientele as their personal testing grounds for new mutagens. Getting ahold of this supplier will be difficult, as they always work through proxies, with many of the buyers knowing them only as “ The Good Doctor”. 

A villain or rival who wishes to parlay with the party may use the Powderkeg as a stage, knowing that while the establishment may appear innocuous and ostensibly neutral, their agents may hide among the rabble and a few well placed bribes can allow them to slip out a back way while the party is barred inside. Worst comes to worst, this antagonist may incite a brawl, hoping the ignorant punters will soften the party up for the real slaughter to come. 

If you were to ask how the Powderkeg got its name, any of the regulars could tell you that it’s an old joke relating to the fact that the owners are so cheap they store their liquor in casks bought secondhand from the military, which explains one of the very particular smells wafting around the tavern and why the cheapest drinks happen to be a bit gritty. In fact, both the name and the smell are explained by the tavern being a front for one of the city’s largest illegal weapon manufacturers, who use the fights and ensuing infamous reputation as a smokescreen for their real crimes.  Materials for weapons and black powder are disguised in the same sort of barrels any tavern takes in by the wagonload, and are processed in a network of hidden cellars deep beneath the surrounding streets. When a buyer is found, the ‘Keg’s owners send their product off in a cask, mixed in to a wagonload of identical, empty barrels, which conveniently detours through a little observed location where the goods can be unloaded without scrutiny. Such deliveries are given little scrutiny by police or trade officials, which has allowed the gunrunners to operate unchallenged for YEARS.  That is, until a mixup causes on of these barrels to be picked up by the owner of the party’s favorite tavern, who’s asks for their help untangling the crime they’ve absentmindedly gotten themselves tangled in.